


Mercurial

by orphan_account



Category: Romeo And Juliet - All Media Types, Romeo And Juliet - Shakespeare
Genre: Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 10:48:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 700
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4561689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A study in mercury and flame. (Written for Day Three of Romeo and Juliet Week)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mercurial

_Mercurial._

This was the word he was named after, and it could not have suited him more.

For the life of him, he could never comprehend what had compelled his parents- two young, healthy, relatively sane (for as much as that counted), people in the prime of their lives- to name their firstborn son after a chemical element. Often he wondered if they hadn’t just opened up a dictionary and modified the first word that they saw; knowing what he did of his parents, even after their deaths, he wouldn’t have been surprised. But it certainly fit, he couldn’t deny that; he was poisonous. He was quick, he was unpredictable, he could be lethal. When people touched him, their skin burned.

It wasn’t as if he was trying to live up to the name given to him; he couldn’t help the person he was. He felt things so strongly, strong enough to seize him and sweep him away in his passions. As much as he clung to logic, argument, and the thrill that was in an exchange of fists, his emotions- when they were able to carry him away- tended to be uncontrollable and violent.

Benvolio knew; he had touched the mercury inside of him, running through his veins in place of blood, and he had gotten burned. Just as he always did and always would, he acted as if it didn’t bother him when he saw Mercutio wrapped around someone else. When he saw his friend neck deep in a bottle, smirking across the room at a coy girl- or guy- Benvolio would never say a word. Mercutio’s senses were keen enough to know when his friend was bothered; Benvolio, for all he felt, rarely vocalized any of it out loud without a deal of prompting, so Mercutio had picked up on reading him like an open book. He knew it stung him, and yet he didn’t feel anything over it. His feelings were selective, sometimes; selfish. He had very little regret.

Tybalt, too, knew the taste of mercury and fire; he was another who, once, Mercutio could read and understand with little effort. For all his bluster the Capulet was rather simple, and with the right word or two Mercutio once could have gotten anything out of him. But Tybalt had changed since the days of their youth, and so had he; now they were practically strangers, condemned to never speak and never understand. They had fallen out of course with the other’s language; the only thing they could comprehend now were blows. It didn’t bother Mercutio; so he told himself, over and over and over again.

In a way, when it came to his feelings he comprehended them almost as little as Romeo did; Romeo, dreamy-headed, romantic Romeo, who understood so much yet so little at the same time. Romeo was maybe too easy to understand; he was a lover, an idealist, his head in the clouds and feet halfheartedly searching for the ground. Romeo was a creature of mist and so he would always remain; deep down, perhaps, Mercutio had always known that the puppy-eyed boy would someday be destined for something terrible. Yet still, he’d known Romeo nearly as long as he’d known himself; the boy was his dearest friend, and in spite of his peculiarities Mercutio never grew bored of him. He would have gladly exchanged his life for Romeo’s in the blink of an eye ( _funny how things work out, sometimes_ ). Yet Romeo did not understand him, and in a way, had no desire to- Mercutio knew this, and accepted it.

He was more than friend and fighter- to Valentine, he was an older brother. To the Prince, he was his rather delinquent nephew. To everyone, he knew he was an enigma in it’s purest form- he was volatile, impossible to predict, to some even mad. And he liked it that way. He liked having the ability to baffle, to amaze, even if sometimes the world weighed on his chest, burdens slung from his arms and legs like weights dragging him down beneath the sea.

He was fire. He was acid. He was mercury, and that was just who he wanted to be.


End file.
